April 2006 Volume II Issue 2
TOAD: Tips and Techniques
By Dan Hotka
Editor’s Note: Every Oracle Developer and Database Administrator knows the power of TOAD. It is
both freeware and a licensed product, and is an excellent alternative
to SQL*Plus for developing Oracle
scripts and reviewing database
schema information. But unlike the
cliché, “you cannot teach an old dog
new tricks”, first time ORAtips contributor and TOAD instructor Dan
Hotka has put together a few of his
favorite things about TOAD for both
the novice and experienced TOAD
user. The result is a tip-packed article of new tricks to save keystrokes,
reduce time spent searching for syntax errors, and make more efficient
use of the symbolic debugger.
Introduction
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TOAD is a Windowsbased graphical tool
that allows for
Oracle SQL and
script execution.
This article will illustrate some of
the more popular uses of TOAD. It
will detail some of the keystroke saving features such as auto replace and
code templates. There are several
ways to obtain information and at
least three ways to do most things.
For example, menu selection, hotkey sequence, right-mouse click, and
assigned function key all have similar purposes. This article will focus
on the three main TOAD utilities:
the SQL Editor, the Schema Browser,
and the Procedure Editor.
SQL Editor
Figure 1 illustrates the main TOAD
interface, the SQL Editor. The SQL
Editor allows you to easily enter and
execute Oracle SQL or unnamed PL/
SQL blocks. The results appear in
the lower half of the screen.
F9 or the green arrow-shaped button allows you to run a single SQL
statement or the SQL statement that
the mouse cursor is currently on. This
button also executes SQL that is high-
TOAD is undoubtedly the defacto standard
development tool for the
Oracle database. TOAD
came from the shareware
days and is sold by Quest
Software. A free trial version is available at www.
TOADsoft.com and www.Quest.
com.
What is TOAD? TOAD
is
a
Windows-based
graphical tool that allows
for Oracle SQL and script
execution, and viewing
object information, relationships, scripts, and
data. Data can also be
easily viewed, saved in
various formats (including MS Excel, XML, and
insert scripts), manipulated, and more. TOAD
is very powerful in the
Oracle PL/SQL arena, its
Figure 1: TOAD SQL Editor
true strength.
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lighted from inside a PL/
SQL routine. The output
from this button appears
in the DATA GRID tab in
the lower area. There will
also be an Explain Plan
generated for this SQL,
which you can view by
clicking the EXPLAIN
PLAN tab.
The button next to the
green arrow-shaped button runs all of the SQL
that is in the SQL area.
The output from this
execution appears in the
SCRIPT OUTPUT tab.
Multiple connections
to the same or different
databases can be maintained. And, multiple
TOAD windows can be
open; the only limit is
the amount of memory
on your workstation! It
is common practice to
have connections to the
test, development, and
even production environments open at the same
time. Under the Window
menu item, it is easy to Figure 2: TOAD SQL Recall
tile or cascade all open
windows.
SQL into the SQL Editor. This is also
a dockable window; notice the pushThe clear button, encased in the pin button. This provides an autoblue circle in Figure 1, clears all the hide type function but still allows
SQL in the window.
easy access to the SQL history.
Pressing F8 brings up the TOAD
SQL History or SQL Recall, as
shown in Figure 2. This is one of
the most popular features of TOAD
because it makes it easy to bring up
SQL worked on previously or, when
tuning SQL 5 iterations ago. There
are options to control how many SQL
statements get saved. TOAD defaults
to the last 100 SQL statements executed. Simply highlight the SQL and
press the SQL button (encased in the
blue circle in Figure 2) to load the
ALT-Up Arrow and ALT-Down
Arrow also access SQL. Recall from
the SQL Editor window, and it will
walk you up or down through recently submitted SQL.
There are a lot of TOAD features
that can eliminate extra keystrokes
when coding. One of the more popular features is the embedded alias
processing. Using table aliases is
a good practice to get into, and in
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TOAD, it greatly aids in the quick
development of SQL statements.
As an example, starting with the
Oracle SQL illustrated in Figure 3,
add a SELECT and FROM clause
and give each table in the FROM
clause an alias.
Now, navigate to other parts of
the SQL statement and enter the
alias followed by a“.” and wait one
second.
A column popup, as shown in Figure 4, will appear. Double click on
any of the columns, and they will be
pasted into your SQL session.
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April 2006 Volume II Issue 2
these tabs. The INDEXES tab is useful when doing SQL tuning work.
Being an old DBA, I am used to
working with scripts. I like to see
the script that can be used to recreate this object in the SCRIPTS tab.
Oracle data can be viewed, filtered
and sorted, and saved in a number
of formats, as will be discussed in
the Schema Browser section of this
article.
Figure 3: TOAD Enabling Alias Processing
The Schema Browser
shows all database
Figure 4: TOAD Alias Pop-Up
You can highlight several columns
at once and hit return, and they will
all be pasted into your SQL session as
illustrated in Figure 5, complete with
aliases! This saves a lot of typing and
research, and the impending syntax
errors because you did not spell the
column name correctly.
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This feature works anywhere in
TOAD where you can work with SQL
including SQL Editor and Procedure
Editor.
objects the user owns
The DESCRIBE window is another
very popular feature. Highlight or
just place the cursor on the object
name in the FROM clause and press
F4. This brings up a window shown
in Figure 6, which shows the columns, data, scripts, indexes, and
relationships. This window can be
resized and moved around.
Column names can also be dragged
and dropped from this window. Data
can easily be viewed along with all
the other information you see on
or has access to.
Note the buttons along the top of
Figure 6. You can easily start a wizard to edit an object, view key relationships, run statistics, or even truncate all of the data! But be careful
out there!
Auto replace is typically used for
typo corrections. Auto replace is activated in TOAD every time you hit the
space bar. You can easily add your
own items for replacement. Typically
items for long table names, putline
for PL/SQL coding, etc., are added.
Using the menu item Editor
Options (Edit > Editor Options), as
shown in Figure 7, you can see what
is in AUTO REPLACE as shown in
Figure 8.
Figure 5: Results of Alias Processing
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Figure 6: F4 Describe Window
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Figure 7: Accessing Auto Replace
Options
Figure 8: Auto Replace Options
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In this example, there are a variety
of common typos that are addressed.
You can also see the “pl” that I added
for my dbms_output.put_line template. Every time I enter “pl” followed by the space bar, this code will
be substituted in its place, as shown
in Figure 9.
That was a brief overview of some of
the top tips and techniques for
using TOAD’s SQL Editor. But it
was barely the tip of the iceberg!
Topics not covered in-clude generating template SQL code, saving data,
code formatting, opening existing
SQL, and saving SQL, which will be
addressed in future articles.
Schema Browser
Pressing the Schema Browser button, as shown in Figure 10, accesses
the Schema Browser. This interface
shows all database objects the user
owns or has access to.
Figure 9: Using Auto Replace
object type. Tabs can be tiled with an
option and right-mouse clicking on
the tabs can hide tabs and uncheck
the ones you do not want displayed.
The right side of the Schema
Browser is remarkably similar to the
F4 DESCRIBE screen in the SQL
Editor. In fact, all of the same fea-
tures discussed here also apply to the
F4 DESCRIBE screen.
You can have a Schema Browser
window open and drag and drop columns from this window back into the
SQL Editor or the Procedure Editor.
On the left side,
the logged in user
appears. Using the
dropdown menu can
change this. TOAD
can access any information on the database that the user has
permissions to see.
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The box just under
the user box is a filter. You can have
only certain objects
appear in the tabbed
navigator
window
(left side). This is
handy when the
application you are
working with has
hundreds of objects.
Notice again on
the left side that the
TABLES tab is displayed. There is a tab
for every database Figure 10: Schema Browser Interface
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Figure 11: Data Tab
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The DATA tab, as shown in Figure
11, has several options. You can add,
delete, or edit the data using the buttons along the top, (encased in a blue
circle on Figure 11). If you click on
a row, then click the little book button (encased in a red circle on Figure
11), this will bring the whole row up
for easy editing.
displayed data because you can
use filters and sorts to get the
data the way you want and the
print and Save As options will
only save the data displayed.
In the SQL Editor, again, use
the SQL itself to filter the data
(WHERE clauses) and sort the
data (ORDER BY clause).
TOAD has two different reporting
options.
1. You can print the displayed
data.
These options are all available by
right-mouse clicking on the data
itself. Select Save As from the popup
menu and you will see the screen in
Figure 12.
2. You can save the displayed data
in a number of formats. I say
Data can be saved in a variety
of formats, as shown in Figure 12.
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Code templates are
similar to the auto
replace except that
they are signaled
with the CTRL-space
bar key
combination.
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brings up a procedure, function, package development
environment, as shown in Figure 13, complete with symbolic debugger. Existing procedures, functions, triggers,
and packages can be opened
from a file or loaded into the
Procedure Editor from the
Schema Browser (PROCS
tab, and either double clicking on the code or rightmouse clicking and clicking on load into procedure
editor).
All the coding shortcuts
described in the SQL Editor
also work here.
Code templates are similar to the auto replace except
that they are signaled with the
CTRL-space bar key combination. TOAD comes with a
variety of existing templates
Figure 12: Save As Options Screen
There are several different options depending on
what you selected in the
upper radio group.
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The INSERT statement
selection allows you to put
“COMMIT;” into the created text after a selected
number of rows. Output
options here include the
clipboard; use it to paste
back into the SQL Editor window, or a file. This
feature along with DDL
generation helps quickly
and easily generate a test
environment
complete
with test data.
Procedure Editor
The Procedure Editor
is accessed via the Procedure Editor button. This Figure 13: Procedure Editor
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Figure 14: Code Template Options
and like auto replace, you can easily
add your own.
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Adding or changing the code templates is accessed from the menu
item Code Templates (Edit > Editor
Options > Code Templates). Figure
14 shows the code template options
screen.
The symbolic debugger supports
break points, (stops the code), conditional break points (can stop the
code after so many passes of a loop
or when a variable meets a condition), watch variables, watch cursors, modify variable contents, and
step in and out of called procedures.
You can run to a break point, or you
can step through the code one line at
a time, or you can run the code until
the debugger reaches the line with
the cursor on it.
Figure 15 displays a sample cursor
loop code template. This is accessed
by entering “crloop” and then pressing the CTRL-space key combination. Note the vertical bar in the
code: the cursor will be placed at that
point. Also notice the substitution
variables. TOAD will prompt you
for these. In this example, you would
enter in the cursor name.
Figure 15: Cursor Loop Template
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Another popular feature is that you
can hover the cursor over any variable and TOAD will display its contents. If you hover over an implicit
cursor, TOAD will display the current row’s information!
These buttons from the Debug
menu bar, as shown in Figure 16,
control the debug environment. Each
of these items also has an associated
button on the tool bar and as you can
see, most of these items also have an
associated function key.
Summary
We just scratched the surface of
TOAD’s capabilities in this article. I
have covered what I consider to be
TOAD’s major features and features
that will get you productive using
TOAD.
Watch for additional TOAD articles on using the debugger and finding application problems.
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Dan Hotka – Dan is a Training
Specialist who has over 27 years
in the computer industry and over
22 years of experience with Oracle
products. He is an internationally
recognized Oracle expert with Oracle
experience dating back to the Oracle
V4.0 days. Dan’s latest book is the
Database Oracle10g Linux Administration by Oracle Press. He is also the
author of Oracle9i Development by
Example and Oracle8i from Scratch
by Que and has co-authored six other
popular books. He is frequently published in Oracle trade journals and
regularly speaks at Oracle conferences and user groups around the
world. Dan may be contacted at
Dan.Hotka@ERPtips.com.
≈
Figure 16: Debugger Menu Bar
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